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First Play-By-Play Football Broadcast

Made by Station 5XB in College Station

What follows is the full story of the first live radio broadcast of a
football game. The broadcast was made on Thursday (Thanksgiving Day), November
24, 1921 from Kyle Field in College Station, Texas by amateur radio station
5XB. This information was found in a presentation
by Mr. Frank Matejka (an operator at 5XU during the broadcast) that was stored
in our club shack. This includes a photo of Mr. Tolson and Mr. Tolson's
original letter on the subject, as appendix to the presentation.

This publication was presented to the
MSC Radio Committee
W5AC
February, 1980 by:

Frank Matejka

THE FIRST FOOTBALL GAME BROADCAST

Texas A&M vs. Texas University
November 24, 1921

For some reason, sports-minded people, particularly broadcasters, seem to
have suddenly become interested in the first football game broadcast and
refer to it as some sort of legend or lore. This is not being fair
because the facts have always been available to anyone who wished to know
what they are. Several of the participants in this broadcast are still
around and all have collaborated in furnishing the information which makes
this narrative possible.

The broadcast was unusual -- it was accomplished by licensed radio
amateurs using telegraphic code operating on amateur radio frequencies.
The names of participants with licensed station call signs and hometowns
were as follows:

Harry M. Saunders, 5NI - Greenville, Texas

George E. Endress, 5JA/5ZAG - Austin, Texas

W. Eugene Gray, 5QY - Austin, Texas

J. Gordon Gray, 5QY - Austin, Texas

Charles C. Clark, 5QA - Austin, Texas

Franklin K. Matejka, 5RS - Caldwell, Texas

Shortly after the hostilities of World War I ended, amateur radio
activities began anew; and the students who had radio operating licenses
were permitted to operate school stations. It was only natural that these
operators would get together on more or less regular schedules; and it was
during one of these exchanges between W. A. Tolson (now deceased), Chief
Operator at Texas A&M Experimental Station 5XB, and operators at Texas
University Experimental Station 5XU, that a decision was reached to
undertake the transmission of the play-by-play activities of the
forthcoming Thanksgiving football game from College Station.

At the time of the broadcast, the state of radio communications had not
yet reached the point where vacuum tubes would be used in universal voice
transmission; and instead, intelligence was commonly conveyed by dots and
dashes using the International Morse radiotelegraph code. Transmissions
by code are inherently much slower than by voice and its normal rate of
speed is in the vicinity of 20 words or 100 characters per minute. This
is too slow to keep up with gridiron activities and therefore, a system of
abbreviations had to be devised. It so happened that Harry Saunders (now
deceased) had previously worked as an operator with Western Union and was
familiar with methods used by commercial telegraph companies in furnishing
the play-by-play accounts of football and baseball games to newspapers,
private sporting clubs, etc. When it was mentioned on the air to the
operators at Texas University that such a list of abbreviations was being
prepared, numerous requests for a copy of the list were received by radio
and by mail from some of the 275 then licensed amateur radio operators in
the state. Thus, what had started out to be a point-to-point broadcast,
turned out to be one with many listeners.

For transmission, wires were run from the press box at Kyle Field to
the station in the Electrical Engineering building a half-mile or so away.
For reception, other wires were run to the home of a radio amateur who
lived near the playing field. This arrangement enabled the operator to
hear his own transmissions as well as those from amateur stations should
their operators wish to interrupt for clarification or other information.
The only radio equipment at the press box was a key for transmitting and
a pair of headphones from receiving.

Although the reporting of play-by-play action in 1921 was simpler than
that of today due to the absence of the two-platoon system and the lesser
frequency of substitutions, it still required the help of spotters from
each team to make it possible. The activity on the gridiron had to be put
into abbreviations and then into radio signals. Actually, there was
little delay in conveying the information to others and it is estimated
that this delay rarely amounted to more than one play behind. Only one
incident threatened the success of this broadcast. Near the end of the
first half of the game a fuse blew out on the equipment, but this was
hurriedly replaced by Tolson who went to the Electrical Engineering
building after having been excused temporarily from his duty in the Aggie
band.

It is doubtful that Saunders, the sole operator in the press box, ever
envisioned the magnitude of the chore that he had agreed to accept.

The situation at Texas University was relatively simple; and with the
exception of more persons in the room and the addition of an audio
amplifier and horn speaker, it could well have been the location of
another radio amateur listener. The Gray brothers (now deceased), Clark
and Endress manned the transmitter and receiver positions, copying the
abbreviations sent from Kyle Field and on occasion, communicating with
Saunders. Slips of paper with received abbreviations were passed over a
long table to Matejka, who relayed the decoding over a horn speaker
through an open window to the many interested University students who had
gathered outside to keep up with the progress of the game.

The broadcast was unique in another respect. It is safe to say that it
is the only audience participation broadcast in which the members of the
audience could converse with the master of ceremonies by means of their
personal amateur radio stations.

The outcome of the game? It was a scoreless tie.

------------------------------------------
To make the story complete, it is planned to write an addendum to the
preceding which would feature in detail the types of equipment which were
used at both schools, the preliminaries to the broadcast, people who were
contributors to the broadcast but who did not participate and some human
sidelights. Only a few details remain to be either accepted or
refuted.
------------------------------------------
F. K. Matejka
October 12, 1976

The following is an addendum to the narrative of October 12, 1976,
titled "The First Football Game Broadcast" and should be considered to be
its extension and conclusion.
------------------------------------------

Mr. W. A. (Doc) Tolson, with a hometown of Sherwood, Texas, was a
student in the Electrical Engineering Department, Class of 1923. He was a
member of the San Angelo Club and a non-military member of the Aggie band.
He was closely associated with the construction and assembly of radio
station 5YA in 1920, which became 5XB a short time later.

Radio stations with call letters beginning with "X" were "experiment
stations for the development of radio communication" which, among other
things, permitted the use of higher power than those licensed with call
letters beginning with the letter "Y" which were assigned to "Technical
and training school stations".

A careful search of the government callbooks from 1913 through 1922
failed to show that Tolson had ever received an amateur radio station
license with assigned call letters: however, in the early days, one could
qualify and receive an operator's license only. The names of such
licensees would not appear in government callbooks. He was, however, a
code instructor in connection with Signal Corps training work. His close
associate, Harry M. Saunders, Class of 1922, possessed an amateur radio
station license, 5NI, as well as both Commercial First Class Telephone and
Commercial Second Class Telegraph licenses. As best it can be
ascertained, no other licensed operator was connected with the
station.

It was thoughtful and appropriate that Mr. E. H. Elmendorf, Publicity
Assistant at Texas A&M, wrote to Tolson in 1946 or 1947 requesting him to
report the story on the football game broadcast. He made one serious
mistake, however, when he included a date for the broadcast. In his
reply, Tolson wrote, "Your letter states that the year was 1919. From my
own memory I cannot recall the exact year...".

One can assume from the above that Tolson had some misgivings about
1919; otherwise, there was no reason for his having made special mention
of it. He would have naturally had occasional difficulty in remembering
details after some twenty-five years; but to change a date by two years
during a four-year span of college attendance, he became faced with
impossible irreconcilable situations. Neither station 5YA nor 5XB was in
existence in November 1919; and although the former was in operation in
November 1920, this was not a year in which the game was played at College
Station.

Tolson deserves both sympathy and accolades for his efforts; and
despite many discrepancies in his report, he furnished much information on
many subjects which could be followed and put into proper sequence.

The dates of initial operation of both station 5YA and 5XB can be
closely approximated from news items which appeared in QST (an
amateur radio publication):

"College Station, 5YA, will be on as soon as school opens". (Page 34,
November 1920).

"... best work has been done by using station 5XB for relay, as all
Houston stations can work this station at any time, day or night on low
power". (Page 36, February 1921).

By applying a time lag in publishing, it is apparent that station 5YA
had a short life, most likely from September 1920 to about December 1920,
at which time it was superseded by station 5XB. With this conclusion,
station 5XU at Texas University never contacted station 5YA at College
Station because 5XU was not in existence in 1920. The items also indicate
that the station had been in operation for more than one year prior to the
date of the broadcast.

Many press releases and stories have been written about the broadcast
using various dates with corresponding scores, and it is not surprising
that broadcasters and publications have continued to perpetuate errors
which were inherent in any article based on the premise that the event
occurred in 1919, written as if the date was 1920 and disregarding its
actual date of performance in 1921.

From the tone of Tolson's report of the broadcast, one cannot help but
wonder if its composition was not the result of much insistence by Mr.
Elmendorf or others and that he did not relish its preparation. Why did
he not establish the correct year before embarking on the narrative? Why
did he choose the date of 1920 for the game when it is customary that
Texas University plays Texas A&M at College Station only in "odd" years?
Is it being "picky" to wonder why a college graduate writing a supposedly
serious account of a happening for historical record would use such
language as "I set out to build a ham transmitter that which there would
be nothing whicher"?

Tolson's report forms the appendix to this narrative.

Sidelights

During the broadcast of the game a number of amateur radio operators
called in on the frequency to ask for the score or for "fill-ins" on the
reports. Even NKB, a hard-boiled Navy station at Galveston which
occasionally complained of amateur radio station interference called in
between halves to get the score.

There was an interesting report on the reception of the broadcast by
William P. Clarke (now deceased) who at that time operated amateur radio
station 5FB/5ZAF in Waco, Texas. Prior to the game he had with some
difficulty persuaded the editor of a local newspaper to permit him to put
his radio receiver in his office. The play-by-play received by Clarke was
so far ahead of the Associated Press reports ordinarily furnished to
newspapers, that the editor put a loudspeaker in a car and drove to the
office of a rival newspaper where Associated Press reports were being
given to a large crowd in the street. He advised the crowd that the
play-by-play reports of the game as they occurred were being given at his
office, with the result that most of the crowd rushed over to Clarke's
installation.

Some of the details in this narrative have been verified by Cecil F.
Butcher, 5AL, (now deceased), of Greenville, Texas, a real old-timer,
whose early Navy training resulted in keeping a complete log of the
broadcast as he received it. His log states in part: "Thursday, November
24, 1921 -- cloudy and warm; up at 3 P.M. (he worked nights for the Katy
railroad) and copy play-by-play report from 5XB of the Texas A&M ball
game. 5XB comes in fine, no fading, and copy all of it without much
trouble from his old buzz-saw rotary spark on 375 or 400 meters. Also 5XU
very loud".

Equipment at 5XB - Texas A&M

The equipment was constructed for the most part in the Electrical
Engineering laboratory by the radio amateur students interested in the
station and with the help and guidance of the head of the Electrical
Engineering Department, Dean F. C. Bolton who later became President of
the College. The main power transformer had been constructed for oil
testing purposes and was capable of providing the power limit of two
kilowatts allowable under the special experimental license of 5XB.

The transmitting condenser consisted of about 100 clear glass
photographic plates interlaced with tinfoil from damaged paper condensers
from the laboratory. The entire "sandwich" of glass plates and tinfoil
was immersed in an oil-filled copper-lined box. Its performance was
unusually good considering the voltage involved.

The oscillation transformer was "loaned" by the Signal Corps Radio
Laboratory which had been established on the campus during World War I for
training of military personnel. It was a real beauty consisting of heavy
aluminum wire wound on separators made from genuine mahogany.

A number of rotary spark gaps were tried from time to time and the one
used on the date of the broadcast was a modified commercial unit bought by
Saunders on radio row in New York City in the summer of 1921 while he was
attending an R.O.T.C. summer training camp at Red Bank, New Jersey. The
modification consisted of mounting the motor behind the control panel with
its rotating shaft extended through the panel. The electrodes, both fixed
and rotary, were then re-mounted on the front of the panel. A circular
wooden cover with a glass front inclosed the gap forming an almost
airtight unit. After a few characters were transmitted, the

...oxygen would be exhausted and the note of the signal neared that of
a
quenched gap. Near the end of each transmission, the operator would
remove the power from the motor and its flywheel effect as the speed
decreased provided a unique and distinctive signature.

The antenna was suspended from a steel tower on the Electrical
Engineering Building in which the station was located on the third floor
to another tower atop the dormitory next door. Details of its
construction are not available.

The main station receiver was an early model Coast Guard tuner
consisting of multi-tapped coils with both coarse and fine tuning taps
supplemented by a variable air condenser. This tuning unit was connected
to a World War I Signal Corps VT-1 vacuum tube detector unit and a
two-tube audio amplifier. Filament voltage was obtained from Signal Corps
alkaline storage batteries and the high voltage was provided by
conventional "B" batteries. By today's standards such a receiver would
be useless with crowded signals, but at that time it worked out fairly
well.

The report of Tolson states that an amateur radio operator, the son of
Professor H. E. Smith of the Mechanical Engineering Department, furnished
the receiver for the broadcast. His home station was near Kyle Field and
it was relatively simple to run wires from the receiver to the press box.
A careful search of the callbooks of that period resulted in finding only
one amateur radio station licensed to an individual with the surname of
Smith who had a College Station address. The name and call letters were
Ralph E. Smith, 5FA/5ZP.

Equipment at 5XU - University of Texas

The station was constructed and assembled in the Spring of 1921 in a
World War I temporary building on 24th Street, just west of University
Avenue. It was under the general supervision of the Physics Department
and was the direct responsibility of Mr. George A. Endress, Resident
Architect and Radio Director, father of one of the participants to the
broadcast.

There were two spark transmitters -- one was a Navy Standard 2-KW
Marconi with a quenched spark gap and the other consisted of a 1-KW
Thordarson power transformer with a Navy type non-synchronous rotary spark
gap. The latter gap had stationary electrodes on the outside circle and
two electrodes on the rotor.

The antenna consisted of seven phosphor-bronze wires about 240 feet
long on 20-foot spreaders, between two 110-foot steel poles. Because of
poor ground conditions, the antenna was supplemented by a counterpoise
about 20 feet longer than the antenna.

The receiver was a Grebe CR-2 which had a built-in two stage audio
amplifier. This was connected to a Magnavox electro-dynamic speaker with
a phonograph type horn.

Final Comments

This narrative is the result of much correspondence and research
beginning with the first letter of inquiry to participants on November 18,
1962 (some 14 years ago). It can be said that in the interim an attempt
has been made to check the complete accuracy of each detail to the
greatest extent possible.

Probably the most debatable detail centers on whether Tolson
participated in the actual broadcast. There is no question about his
being involved in all of its preparations. In his report he does not say
that he participated and neither does he say that he did not participate.
Saunders, on the other hand, who was an operator in the press box, states
that during the game he enlisted the aid of Tolson from the Aggie band to
replace a fuse in the equipment at the station. Conclusion: Tolson did
not participate.

A person who is not informed on communications matters may conclude
that there might have been much scurrying around in making preparations
for the broadcast. This is not true. The principal change at the
station was to remove a high speed contactor (keying relay) and to
substitute another which conformed to the voltage on the wires leading to
the key at the press box. Such a relay is less than two inches square and
would have cost not more than three or four dollars. The substitution
would have been completed in a couple of minutes.

Headphones in quantity were available from the station as well as from
code instruction classes. Twisted pair (two wires twisted together) has
continued to be available in long lengths on large spools or reels for the
connection of various electrical devices which use relatively low
voltages. The maximum effort expended on the preparation for this
broadcast would most likely have been the stringing of the twisted pair
while making temporary attachments to poles, buildings, trees and the like
from the press box to both the transmitter and the receiver. Only part of
a day would be required to accomplish this work.

Many of the references made in the report to individuals who assisted
in the assembly of the station actually occurred in 1920, more than a year
prior to any thought of the broadcast; and, as such, in the mind of the
writer, are not relevant to this accounting.

Sources of Information

Callbooks "Amateur Radio Stations of the United States"
Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of Navigation - 1913 through 1922.

The question you raise as to the first broadcast of a football game has
come up several times before, but heretofore stress of circumstances made
it very difficult to take the time to dig up and present all the
information at my disposal. However, I am going to attempt to lay this
ghost once and for all if at possible. Accordingly, I have dug out my old
notes on the operation of old 5YA (predecessor to 5XB and WTAW), my photo
album, and have cudgeled my memory as to the events leading up to the
broadcast which (at the time) we considered as only a stunt, but which now
appears to have some historical significance.

In starting the chain of circumstances, I am forced to point an
accusing finger at Dr. F. C. Bolton, who at that time was Professor of
Electrical Engineering. He was guilty of permitting (nay, even
encouraging) me to become so thoroughly inoculated with the germs of
Radio that even at that time my case was practically hopeless. During the
war he had exposed me to the infection by putting me in the code room as
an instructor, and having me operate the spark transmitter, which was used
in connection with the Signal Corps training work.

As soon as the war was over, and radio was permitted to civilians on a
"ham" basis again, I set out to build a ham transmitter than which there
would be nothing whicher. In this I was aided and abetted by my partner
in crime, B. Lewis Wilson. At that time Lewis was in charge of electrical
maintenance in the E. E. Laboratories. Lewis supplied a tremendous amount
of initiative, self-confidence, and drive, all three of which I lacked. I
believe Lewis is now in the electrical contracting business in Denton.
His recollections on the subject may be valuable.

Our first step in building the Rock Crusher transmitter was to "steal"
from Prof. O. B. Wooten's testing laboratory a high-voltage transformer,
which had been built by the students in the two-year course for
electricians, for oil-testing purposed.

The oscillation transformer was "swiped" from the Signal Corps Radio
Laboratory. It was wound with aluminum wire, and insulated with BEAUTIFUL
mahogany.

The transmitting condenser was easy. We had only to "procure" about a
hundred glass photographic plates from the Campus Photo Studio, secure (by
night) a copper-lined box from Prof. Wooten's laboratory, and unwind a few
tinfoil-paper condensers from the same source. After all, the condensers
were no good, having been accidentally damaged beyond repair. After
assembling the glass plates and tinfoil in the copper-lined box, it was
filled with oil (source unidentified). Thus the shining countenance of
many a former student gazed complacently through the murky depths of the
oil in our coffin-like condenser.

The rotary spark gap was a little more difficult. In Prof. W. G.
James's office was an object which made our mouths water. It was an
electric fan with a beautiful overgrown motor. However, the progress of
science was somewhat delayed by the adamant refusal of Prof. James to
allow his fan to be placed in winter storage until the weather got cool.
If my memory does not play tricks, fate intervened in favor of science.
It seems that the fan accidentally fell out of the window, where it had
been carelessly placed by someone. When the fan was retrieved from the
sidewalk, it was found that the blades were hopelessly damaged. There was
no reason, however, why the motor could not serve a useful purpose as the
prime mover for a rotary spark gap.

All the above items may be identified in the accompanying photograph,
which I hope you will return as it ranks high in my meager list of
possessions.

Thus was born the original rock-crusher ham transmitter at A. and
M.

Dr. Bolton fought for and secured a transmitter license for the station
which carried the call letters 5YA. The "Y" at that time designated an
educational institution. Later the letter "X" was used to designate an
experimental station, and the call letters were changed to 5XB.

In order to localize the radio infection as much as possible, Dr.
Bolton set quarantine limits on a small room at the end of the hall on the
third floor of the E. E. building. With the "equipment" installed, and an
antenna swung from the roof of the E. E. building to the old tower atop
the dormitory next door, there was foisted upon the then small and select
Radio Fraternity one of the worst sources of interference known to the art
at that time. (I shudder to think how many kilowatts Wooten's oil-testing
transformer may have drawn from the line.)

I cannot recall at just what point Harry M. Saunders (E.E. '22) entered
the picture. Harry was by far our best operator, having had considerable
experience as an A. P. operator, and he had a beautiful "fist". He was an
enthusiastic ham, and we sat out many a watch together until the wee sma'
hours when we got tangled with a real DX station.

There was another man who also assisted in the operation of the station
at that time, and who cooperated throughout in planning and executing the
broadcast. Cudgel my memory as I will, I cannot recall his name. If any
publicity is ever given to the subject broadcast, I hope that an
opportunity will be given to this man to make himself known. I feel that
he is due my abject apologies for having paced him in an embarrassing
position on account of my faulty memory. (Try R. G. Eargle, E.E. '24. He
many be the man.)

Now as to the actual broadcast. Your letter states that the year was
1919. From my own memory I cannot recall the exact year, but the game was
definitely the Thanksgiving game with TU. Here is how the idea
originated.

We had been operating 5YA for some time as a typical ham relay station.
We received so many requests from stations throughout the Southwest that
we agreed to get on the air immediately after the Thanksgiving game and
give them the score. Then the idea began to grow that it would be swell
to give them a play-by-play account of the game. Unfortunately there were
two difficulties. First, we had no way to control the transmitter from
Kyle field, and, second, Morse code would be so slow that we would not be
able to keep up with the game.

In overcoming the first difficulty, it was a simple matter to run a
twisted pair from the E.E. building to Kyle Field, but to handle the
primary current of the transmitter over such a line was another matter.
As usual, Dr. Bolton came to the rescue when we were in trouble. He
appealed to the Signal Corps, who still had at least a paternal
interest in our establishment, and they came forward with a high-speed
contractor which sounded like the clatter wheels, but which served the
purpose admirably.

The difficulty with the time element was solved by a plan which I
believe was proposed by Harry Saunders. We would simply make up a list
of abbreviations which would be used during the broadcast, and mail a
copy to any of the amateur stations who were interested in receiving
the broadcast. The abbreviations went something like this: if we sent
"TB A 45 Y", the interpretation would be "Texas's ball on the Aggie's
45 Yd. line". If we sent, "T FP 8Y L", the interpretation would be
"Texas forward pass 8 yards loss". The idea was very simple, and
worked beautifully, as the results of our transmission later proved.
We accordingly went into a huddle and worked out a list of
abbreviations with one of Coach Bible's assistants. We then took the
bull by the horns and ran off a couple of dozen copies to mail to
anyone who was interested. We then began mentioning, to such hams as
we thought would be interested, that the list was available for the
asking. The result was rather astounding. Apparently the information
was passed around "by word of spark" and we deluged with relay messages
from stations we had never heard of, asking for the list. Overnight we
were doing a land office business. We ground the mimeograph until our
arms ached and we licked envelope flaps until I can still taste it. I
suspect that Dr. Bolton's stamp budget was overexpended for the next
three years!

Some time ahead of the big game, we ran the twisted pair down to
Kyle Field and tried out the control system. Electrically, it operated
perfectly, but we ran into a psychological snag. The operator could
not hear what he was sending, and therefore had no "feel" of his key.
His sending was terrible. At this point we received help from an
unexpected source. Prof. Smith, of the mechanical engineering
department, lived immediately adjacent to Kyle Field. His son, in high
school, was also a dyed-in-the-wool ham. I must apologize that I
cannot recall the son's given name. At any rate, Prof. Smith's son
came forward with the suggestion that he had a good receiver in
operation, and it was only a stone's throw to Kyle Field. Why not run
a twisted pair from his receiver to the press box, and give the
operator a pair of phones so that he could hear what he was sending?
No sooner said than done, and we found that the setup was perfect. Not
only was our problem solved, but we found that we were collecting
dividends which we had not anticipated. In those days of
high-decrement transmitters and low-selectivity receivers, you could
turn on your receiver and hear practically any station on the air
without bothering to tune your receiver. We found that we had a
perfect break-in system. During the actual broadcast of the game,
several "ham" stations called in between quarters and halves to ask
questions. Even NKB at Galveston (a hard-boiled station if there ever
was one) called in between halves to get the score, as he had been busy
with traffic and had lost track of the game.

Credit for outstanding performance in the reception of this
broadcast should go to W. P. Clarke, who at that time operated station
5ZAF in Waco. He had to argue mightily to get permission to install
his receiver in one of the local newspaper offices. Apparently they
had no confidence in this "amateur radio stuff", but were willing to
humor them. The report we got from Clarke after the game was to the
effect that our reports were so far ahead of A.P. that at the end of
the first half his newspaper put a Magnavox loud speaker in a car and
drove down to the rival newspaper office where they were giving out the
A.P. reports to tremendous crowd in the street. They announced to the
crowd that they were giving out play-by-play reports AS THEY HAPPENED.
The result was a near riot in front of Clarke's installation.

The above is, to the best of my knowledge, a fairly accurate account
of the events leading up to the first broadcast of a football game from
station 5YA. I also suspect it was the first such broadcast in
history. Before sticking you neck out too far, however, I would
suggest that you get in touch with the other people I have cited, if it
is possible to do so. In this way you will have a four-way check on my
memory, which is rather hazy on some points after 27 years.